


Zero Sum

by Ember_Keelty



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-16
Updated: 2011-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/pseuds/Ember_Keelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU.  Rue survives the attack in the clearing.  For Katniss, this turns out to be terribly inconvenient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Net One

            When I break into the clearing, she's on the ground, hopelessly entangled in a net.  The career pack is nowhere to be seen.

            "Left!" Rue shouts, and I look that way just in time to dodge a spear thrust to the gut.

            The boy from District 1 stumbles slightly with his own thwarted momentum. He's too close to shoot, so I drop the bow and grab the shaft of his spear with both hands, trying to wrench it away from him.   It's one of the stupider impulses I've ever had; he's bigger and stronger than I am, and when he regains his footing he swings me around so that I lose mine.  I manage to keep my grip, but I don't have enough weight to drag him down after me.  He yanks the spear up and I come up with it — not enough to get my feet under me, but that's a secondary concern.  As long as I hang on, he can't stab me.

            Unfortunately, spears aren't just stabbing weapons.  When my adversary figures out I'm not letting go, he drops down on top of me, pinning my body to the ground with his own and pressing the shaft against my throat.  Choking, I struggle to push it away, but all I manage to gain are a few scattered split-seconds of air.  It isn't enough to sustain the strain on my muscles, and I know that as soon as my arms give out, I'm finished.

            Just when I'm about to lose hope, something comes down over the District 1 boy's head.  It takes me a moment to realize that it's a fold of the net, that I've bought enough time for Rue to get free, and that instead of running, she's standing over a boy twice her size, trying to pull him off me.  She can't, of course, but when he lets go of the spear to tear the mesh from his face, I swing the shaft up against the underside of his chin.  It stuns him just enough for me to have time to get to my feet.  Before he can recover, I drive the point into his chest.  His body slumps against Rue's shins.  She gives a small, horrified yelp and jumps away from it, then looks up at me with wide eyes.

            "That's the second time I've helped you kill someone," she whispers just before the cannon goes off.  It takes me a longer moment than it should to realize she's talking about the tracker jackers.  This is such a different thing, physically — the wet sound of flesh giving way, the too-slight resistance of bone, the spray of blood on my legs — I'd nearly forgotten that that was killing too, however less direct.

            "Let's get away from here," I tell her, hurriedly picking up my bow.

            She clings to my free hand with both of hers as we walk.

—

            "One person isn't much of an ambush," I muse out loud.

            It's evening, and we're eating together again.  Rue is sitting so close that she'd be getting crumbs on me if we had anything that crumbled.  We haven't spoken much since the attack, but I don't think she's been more than three feet from my side the whole time.

            "It wasn't an ambush," Rue says.  "He heard you shouting and must have decided to deal with you first.  I guess I wasn't exactly much of a threat."

            It's awful, but I can't help cracking a small smile.  That was the plan, and it worked.  Lately, all of my plans have been working better than I would have ever dared to hope.  For the first time, I'm really starting to believe that I can win this thing.

            "Katniss," Rue says, "how long are you going to stay with me?"

            My smile vanishes.  "Until the end," I tell her automatically.  After everything that happened today, I can't imagine any other response.

            "But what happens then?  What's 'the end'?"

            I don't have an answer for her.  Thankfully, before I have to give one, the trumpets sound.  "Let's listen to the announcement," I say quickly.  If there's going to be a food drop, it might be the best chance we'll ever get to pick off the District 2 tributes.

            But that's not what the announcement is about.  It's about a rule change:  "For this, the seventy-fourth Hunger Game, the last two tributes alive will be declared joint winners."

            I look to Rue.  Her mouth is caught in something between a gape and a smile, and there's just a hint of tears at the corners of her eyes.  Then she looks to me, too, and promptly hugs me like she means to crush my ribs.

            "So many times I've wished I weren't the oldest," she babbles.  "So many times I've wished that I didn't have to be the strong one all the time, that I had an older sister to love and look after _me_.  When I met you, I thought… but I knew that it couldn't… but now it _can._   Katniss, thank you for saving my life, thank you, thank you.  I love you.  Promise me I'll get to meet Prim."

            "Of course," I tell her.  "You'll be great friends, I know it."

            I want to be as happy as she is, but there's a sliver of worry preventing me.  Why would the Gamemakers give us this?  What are they planning?

—

            A few hours later, it looks like they're planning to light me on fire again.

            Rue shakes me awake, grabs my hand, and drags me up, still reeling from images of the District 1 boy alternately skewering me through the heart, choking Rue, and calmly telling me about his mother as he bleeds onto my boots.  She has me on my feet and running before I've fully comprehended that this isn't another nightmare, let alone figured out what's wrong.  Then I smell the smoke, and one glance over my shoulder confirms it.

            The wall of flame isn't as close behind as it was the last time, but that's hardly an incentive to relax.  "Dump packs!  Move faster!" I pant out to Rue, but she shakes her head.

            "Stream ahead!" she tells me.  "Very close!  We'll be safe there!"

            She's right.  In just a few minutes, we plunge into cold water up to my chest and her neck.  We stand there shivering and with Rue's teeth chattering as the fire approaches to just a matter of yards away, stops, and slowly dies to cinders.

            "Careful," I whisper to Rue as we wade back out.  "There's probably someone around here."  What else could the point of that have been?

            As I step onto the bank, something shifts beneath my foot.  I stagger back, arms reeling, and just barely manage to keep from falling flat into the water.  As I do, I hear a loud, pained groan.

            "Katniss?" says what looks in the dark like a large clump of mud on the shore.

            Rue gasps.  My shoulders stiffen.  "Peeta."


	2. Three Choose Two

            Rue clutches my arm and whispers, "Peeta?  Isn't that the boy who..?"

            "Loves me," I answer dryly.  "Cato said he was fatally wounded."

            "And now he's just lying in the mud."  I feel her shudder.  "Maybe you should… should… you know, help him."

            "Of course I'm going to help him."  For one thing, I owe him, and not just for the bread anymore.  For another, the Gamemakers wanted me to find him for a reason.  If I ignore that, it could hurt my chances with the sponsors.

            I get down on my knees in the muck.  I need to be close to see anything in the dark.  I have to stifle a startled cry when he wraps an arm around my back and pulls me even closer.

            "Remember," he whispers into my ear, "we're madly in love, so it's all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it."

            "Peeta!" I say reproachfully, jerking up.  I laugh and try to make it sound light-hearted.  "Behave yourself!  There's a little girl here!"  Yet another reason to be grateful for her:  she's the best excuse I could have hoped for.

            "Rue's with you?"  He sounds surprised, which is understandable, but there's something else in his voice.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but I don't like it.

            "That's right," I tell him gently.

            "Why?"  Fear.  Hostility.  Of course — she's still an enemy to him.

            "We're allies now," I assure him.

            "Katniss," he says very slowly, as though he were speaking to someone he suspected of being a bit dull, " _I'm_ your ally."

            "That's right.  You don't have anything to fear from us," I say as I try to get a look at his leg.  I can't see it very well in the tree-filtered starlight, but the smell is clear as day.  My heart sinks; it's definitely infected.  At a loss, I tentatively probe it with my fingers, attempting to gather as much more information as I can.

            "Katniss!"  He shoves my hand away.  "That's a _problem._ "

            Only then does it fully hit me:  Peeta, Rue, and myself make three.  In the long run, I can only help one of them.  I might be patching up his wounds only to have to kill him later.

            "It's a problem we'll deal with when the time comes," I say, because no matter what happens later, I _will_ save him now.  Besides, if something happens to one of them, I want to have the other one.  If something happens to me, I want them to have each other.  "Rue, do you think we can risk lighting a torch?"

            "Why a torch?"

            "Because I can't treat a wound I can't see."

            "What do you mean tr—"  Rue cuts herself off suddenly.  "Oh.  You're really going to… _oh._ "  She falls silent.

            "Rue," I prompt her again.  "Torch?"

            "Torch.  Yes.  Maybe we should go somewhere there's cover, first."

            I agree.  Peeta does also, and says that he can walk a bit if I let him lean on me as we go, though he's uncharacteristically monosyllabic about the whole exchange.  Rue scouts ahead and finds us a small cave, and as I get Peeta settled there she goes out and lights a torch.

            The gash on Peeta's leg looks as bad as it smells.  It's oozing pus, and deep enough that I can see the bone.  Rue takes one look and goes to stand outside.  That confuses me and then leaves me confused as to why I found it confusing, until I realize that on some level I have been thinking of her and Prim as the same person.  That has to stop; if we're going to be long-term allies, I need to keep a realistic assessment of her abilities.

            I rinse off the mud with iodine-sterilized water.  Rue tells me without looking in to get out as much of the pus as I can.  Squeezing helps some, and when that's done as much as it can I try digging the gunk out with my knife.  That lasts until I accidentally dig out a large chunk of flesh with it.

            "Put the knife away, Katniss," Peeta says when he's done swearing.

            "Sorry," I say and, because this is as good a time for it as any, give him a quick kiss on the mouth.

            When I draw my attention away from his leg for a moment, I realize he hasn't yet pulled out the tracker jacker stingers from his welts.  That, at least, I can do with tweezers from the District 1 boy's first aid kit rather than my knife.  I use the leaves Rue gave me for my own stings on them, then ask her if I should try putting some in his wound.  She says she thinks I had better just keep it clean.  With that idea gone, there's not much else to do besides use the bandages and fever medicine in the first aid kit.

            When Rue comes back in, she's carrying a pot of broth.  "It dropped while you were busy," she says, and glances at the ground with the last word.

            Peeta needs to eat, but I quickly find that he doesn't _want_ to.  With the fever wreaking havoc on his digestive system, he chokes up the first few sips and refuses to take a another one.  After what seems like ten full minutes of coaxing and begging, he says, "I'll tell you what:  for another kiss, I'll try again."

            It takes some effort to stifle what would have been altogether the wrong kind of sigh.  "Rue, a moment?"

            Rue, who has been sitting and watching us in silence, doesn't budge.  "It smelled so good when I was standing outside waiting for you to be done," she says quietly.  "I wanted to drink it myself, but I didn't, not even a taste."

            "Rue, please."

            "I can't stand seeing food go to waste," she interrupts, glaring at Peeta.  For the first time, she's speaking to him directly, and there's a sharpness in her voice I've never heard there before.  The next moment, it's gone, and she sounds like the Rue I know again.  "Katniss, can't you see it's useless?  He can't keep it down, and you… doing things like that for him… isn't going to make him keep it down.  We should eat it while it's hot and wait until he's feeling better to feed him."

            "That's actually a good idea," Peeta admits before I can argue.  "You must be hungry, Katniss.  You've been working so hard to help me."

            "And you've been lying in the mud without food for days!" I shoot back, but it's no good.  I'm outvoted.

            After we eat, Rue and Peeta lie down to sleep in the cave while I stand watch at the mouth.  It's a cold night to be wearing wet clothes, and I can only hope I don't come down with an infection myself.  Rue stripped hers off and laid them on the rocks to dry, covering herself with my sleeping bag.  Maybe it's irrational, but with Peeta around and nothing to cover _me_ , I can't quite bring myself to do the same.

            When dawn breaks, I take a glance over my shoulder to see if the light streaming into the cave will wake my allies.  It doesn't, and the sight of the two of them sleeping so peacefully so close together hits me with a pang of wistfulness.  I wonder briefly if maybe in some other world the three of us could have been a family.  Perhaps exhaustion makes me sentimental.  With that in mind, I should probably shake Peeta awake so he can take a shift and I can rest.

            In the end, I decide against it.  There's a limit to how long I'll be able to protect them both.  While I can, I will.


	3. Subtraction

            That morning is the calmest I've had since the games began.  Rue collects edible plants and I kill rabbits, then she boils them all in the broth pot while I stand on guard, ready to shoot anyone who comes to investigate the smoke.  No one does.

            This time Peeta is able to drink some of the broth, but I still can't get much of anything solid into him.  At least when I change his bandages his wound doesn't seem to be getting any worse, but the fever shows no signs of breaking, and it's quickly burning up what little flesh is left between his skin and bones.  Rue and I plotted to make this Hunger Game into a game of attrition.  That's a game Peeta is going to lose.

            "Why isn't District 2 coming to investigate the fire?" I wonder aloud to Rue while Peeta naps after his meal.

            "Well, the last time they did that, you blew up their food," she points out.

            "Maybe we should try making noise.  The sooner they show up, the sooner I can kill them, and the better chance Peeta stands."

            Rue gives me an odd look for a moment, then turns away.  "That's not true, though.  I don't really want to think about it, but… it'll be easier for us if they get to Thresh and Wren first."

            "Wren," I repeat.  "The District 5 girl's name is Wren?  A bird name?"

            "Uh huh.  Why do you sound surprised?"

            "It's just hard to see her as a bird.  She's so fox-like.  I've been calling her Foxface in my head."

            "She's small like a songbird," Rue says, her voice suddenly so quiet I can barely hear it.  "Almost as small as I am.  She can't be more than a couple years older than me."  She falls silent for a few seconds, then blurts out, "Katniss, I don't want to see you kill her!"

            I almost shot her yesterday.  I gave it as much thought as I would have given to shooting a rabbit.  I don't understand Rue's vehemence, but it makes my stomach twist as my mind throws up an image of my arrows sticking out from the back and neck of a tiny red-haired corpse.  Wren.  A corpse with a name.  "I'll do what I have to in order to protect you and Peeta," I tell Rue, but I feel like I'm trying to explain it to myself as well.

            She meets my eyes again.  "Do you really love him?"

            "I…"  I will myself not to look down.  Lying to the whole of Panem is easy enough, but it's hard to bring myself to lie to Rue.  "Of course I do!"

            "Why?"

            I decide to come as close to the truth as I can.  Isn't that the most plausible kind of lie?  "He was kind to me, once, when I really needed it.  I've never forgotten that kindness."

            "Oh," says Rue.  "That makes sense, I guess.  I thought you were going to say something about love not needing reasons."  I wonder briefly if maybe I should have, but she continues, "I'm glad you didn't.  When grown-ups say things like that, I can't help but think—"  She cuts herself off and looks at her feet.  "Never mind."  I almost ask her to tell me, but then I see the embarrassed expression on her face and I can fill in the rest myself.

            She really is just a little girl.

—

            "Each of you needs something desperately," Claudius Templesmith's voice booms.  "Each of you will find that something in a backpack marked with your name."

            "Don't go," Rue and Peeta tell me at the same time.

            "I don't really need anything," Rue says.  "I doubt Clove and that boy need anything more than food.  They're being so _obvious_ about this."

            "Clove?" I ask.  "That's the District 2 girl?"

            Peeta nods.  Rue explains, "I remembered it because it's a plant name."

            "Don't go," Peeta repeats.

            "It will be fine," I tell him.  "Rue will look after you until I get back."

            "That's not what I mean, and you know it!" he snaps.

            "Maybe I don't really care what you mean!" I snap back.  "It's not like you're in any condition to stop me."

            “I can follow you. At least partway. I may not make it to the Cornucopia, but if I’m yelling your name, I bet someone can find me. And then I’ll be dead for sure.”

            "You _jerk_!" Rue gasps.  "You won't do anything like that!  I'll wrestle you to the ground before I let you put her in danger!"  Peeta just laughs darkly.  "You don't think I can?  You're nothing but a half-dead town boy."  It's the same tone she took when she yelled at him about the broth.  Seeing her so angry makes me deeply uncomfortable in a way I can't entirely explain.

            "Rue," I tell her gently, "I think you should leave the two of us alone."

            "Why?"  For the first time, she turns her anger on me.  "So you can make out until he lets you do what you want?  Eurgh!  The two of you are so gross!"

            "Rue!"

            " _So_ gross!" she insists.  "It wouldn't be so bad if you would just kiss like normal people, but you have to make such a big deal out of it!  It's not like you really care if I watch.  You don't care if everyone in all the rest of the country watches.  I'm not _stupid_.  I have _parents_ , you know."

            "You don't want her to go either," Peeta reminds her.  "Why are you freaking out at me?  We're on the same side."

            "Maybe we aren't!" Rue rounds back on him.  "Maybe I think Katniss should do whatever she thinks she should do, because she's the only one here who's ever really had a chance at this game.  Maybe I'll even go with her.  I'm fast if nothing else.  She can cover me with her bow while I make a run for it."

            "I can't let you do that," I tell her.  "If something happens to me, I need you to take care of Peeta."

            "Weren't you paying any attention?" she asks me, suddenly sounding tired instead of mad.  "If you die—"  She stops abruptly.  Her mouth keeps moving for a moment, but all that comes out is a strangled whimpering sound.  Then she buries her face in her hands and darts out from the cave.

            Minutes pass in awkward silence between Peeta and myself before I hear her call out to me.  When I find her, she has an apothecary bottle in her hands.

            "Is that—?" I ask, almost daring to hope, but she shakes her head.

            "Sleep drug.  They _really_ want you to do this."  The sadness in her voice conveys an unspoken, _Which is why I think you shouldn't._ Rue doesn't see things the way I do.  She doesn't understand why it's so important to play along.  I'm not sure she even understands what it is to owe someone your life.

            "Mash it up in some berries and give it to Peeta," I tell her.  "I'll head out slowly.  If he gets suspicious, just call me and I'll pop back in to reassure him I'm only hunting."

            "I'll catch up to you after—" she starts, but I just shake my head.  She bites her lip, looks from me to the bottle to the cave, and goes to pick berries.

—

            I haven't gotten very far from our camp when the cannon sounds.  A second later, I hear Rue scream my name.  I turn on my heels and in the same motion burst into a sprint.

            We gave our position away with the fire.  There's no way we couldn't have.  Cato and Clove aren't stupid enough to charge right into my arrows, though, so one or both of them hung around waiting for me to leave the others unguarded.  It's so obvious I can't believe I didn't realize it earlier, and now Peeta is dead and Rue is going to die before I can get to her and it's all my fault for not _thinking._

When I come into view of the cave, both my legs and my racing mind brake to a stop.  Nothing looks wrong.  I can just make out Rue kneeling and Peeta lying with his head pillowed on my rolled-up sleeping bag, but there's no sign of anyone else.  It must be Thresh or Wren that's dead, and Rue just called out because Peeta was going to chase me down.  It was only an unlucky, frightening coincidence.  I almost laugh with relief.

            "I'm sorry," Rue whispers as I draw closer.

            "What do you have to be sorry ab—"  Before I can finish the sentence, I see it.  Peeta lies stiff, his face discolored, his glazed eyes staring up at me without seeing.  I'm too late.  He was sicker than I realized, and I'm too late.

            "I'm sorry," Rue says again.  She won't look at him or at me, only her hands.  "I thought I could.  I can't."

            I try to feel something:  anger at Cato, regret for Mr. Mellark who protected my sister when I couldn't protect his son, anything but this crushing, numbing despair.

            My legs threaten to give out.  I decide to sit down beside Rue and hold her close.  For that I have to move aside the stones she was using as a mortar and pestle and what's left of the berries she was crushing with them.  As I bend down to do so, I see something that makes me freeze and snap back up.

            "Rue," I say quietly.  "Rue, this is nightlock."

            "I'm sorry!" Rue sobs, and buries her face in her knees.


	4. Division

            "I couldn't… I couldn't… I'm so sorry, Katniss, I couldn't…"

            "Couldn't recognize them."  She's choking on the words, and all I can do is clear them out of her way.  "It's… it's okay."  It isn't, but I've lied to her before.  I'm not sure that I can hold her now, but I lay a hand on the top of her head and stroke her hair.  "You're just a kid.  You've done more right than I could have expected."

            Rue looks up at me, takes a few deep breaths in and out, wipes away her tears, and reaches out to touch my wrist.  "I couldn't stand aside and let him take your place," she says, and the determined steadiness of her voice hits me as hard as the words do.  "I thought that I could pretend it was an accident.  I can't."

            "You…"  My hands clench.  I feel my nails rake across her scalp as my fist closes around a clump of her hair.  "Why?  Why would you do that, Rue?"

            "I didn't want you to die for him."  The block's been passed and the words are tumbling out of her now.  "I didn't want him to get better and kill me to keep you from dying for _me_."  There's fear in her eyes as she watches my face.  It's interesting how reassuring that is, how soothing it feels to think that maybe _everything_ hasn't spiraled entirely out of my control.  "I want to live, and I want you to live.  You saved my life.  I need to see you go home to your sister because she must love you like I—"

            I lift her up by her hair and throw her against the cave wall.  She screams, and it isn't enough.  "Don't you dare even _talk_ about Prim," I tell her.  "You're nothing like her, _nothing_.  She would _never_ do what you just did."

            "What _would_ she do, then?"  Tears are streaming down her face again, and I think for a moment how strange it is that I don't feel at all like crying.  "Katniss, what do I _do_?"

            "Run."

            "What?"

            I mimic her false smile and falsely bright voice from the pre-game interview.  "You can't kill what you can't catch!"

            The confusion in her face melts into unalloyed terror, then in a flash she's on her feet and I can't see her face at all, only her back as she flees.  I give her a ten second head-start before hefting my bow and taking aim.

            She isn't Prim, so I don't see Prim when I sight her.  Prim is fair like town people, and Rue is darker than anyone anywhere in District 12.  Prim is sweet and good, and Rue is just as bad as any of the other tributes.  I've never seen Prim run the way Rue is running now.  She isn't anything like my sister, and I can't believe I ever thought she was.

            All of which means that when I throw my arrow to the ground in helpless rage and simply watch her disappear into the distance, I have no excuse.

—

            After what seems like just a few minutes, the cannon goes off.  It could be Thresh or it could be Wren, but I shouldn't want it to be.  Rue will ally herself with either one of them before she ever comes back to me.  If I want to live, she's going to have to die, and after what just happened I know that my only hope is for someone else to kill her.

            I'm sitting up with Peeta when I hear it.  I don't know what else I can do.  I could go looking for Thresh or Wren and try to form a pact, but for all I know they could already be allied with each other, and Wren, at least, is probably just the type to pretend otherwise in order to get close enough to stab me in the back.  I could go to the Cornucopia to gun for Clove and Cato, but if Rue was right about anything, it was about needing them alive to cull the field.  Maybe if I only killed one of them I could get the other one to ally with me just because I'm strong enough for that to be his best chance at survival, but I refuse to sink that low.  If Peeta was wrong about anything, it was about that.

            There's another reason, a less rational one that I haven't thought out nearly as well because it hurts too much to try, but one that feels just as important.  I don't want the Capitol to take his body. I can't stand to think what they might do with it.  I still don't entirely understand what he meant by wanting to die as himself, but I know that more than he feared death, he feared being changed and he feared being used.  Maybe they wouldn't hurt him.  Maybe they wouldn't do anything else before making him pretty and presentable to send back to District Twelve, like they always do to us after we die, like they do to us _before_ they send us to die.  Even if that's true, though, they shouldn't get to have him at all.

            I don't hold him.  I don't even look at him.  I just sit beside him with my bow in my lap and my eyes on the cave entrance.  I dragged him as deep in as I could just to make the hovercraft's job that much harder.  I dare to hope that someone will have to come down here on foot so that I'll get a chance at killing them.  Nothing can break my bloody-minded focus.  When what I think is a bug stings the back of my neck, I don't even bother to swat it, so the dart stays in until I wake up and find him gone.

—

            The display says it was Thresh who died after Peeta, probably at the Cornucopia.  I tell myself that means I'll be going home with either Wren or Rue.  If we're the last ones left, Rue will have no choice but to trust me.  I wonder if the old baker will forgive me for letting her live, but I wonder idly.  Maybe it _should_ matter, after all he's done for my family, but I can't seem to bring myself to care.

            Then that falls apart too.  The next time the cannon fires, it's the dead of night.  That's the point at which I ought to go out to find the survivor, but I can't see anything in the dark and don't dare risk carrying a torch.  The dawn comes far too slowly, and it's only barely light when the cannon fires again and I realize that I won't be going home at all.  Cato and Clove are from the same district.  Even if I get one of them before they get me, the one left will want to take revenge and won't care about the rule change, will pass it off later as temporary insanity brought on by the stress.  That's what I would do if the situation were reversed, if it were Peeta and myself and one of them.

            The really awful thing is that I probably deserve it.  Rue could have saved me, like she saved me so many times before, but Rue is dead because I chased her away and then missed my chance to bring her back. 

            Even now, even after I've learned better, when I think about Rue, I think about Prim.  Prim wanted me to come home.  Prim would have forgiven me for killing Rue, or for not killing her, or for just about anything else I could possibly do, as long as I did it to come home.  When I realize that, I realize something else, too.  I know that Rue isn't Prim.  I know, or think I know, that Prim wouldn't have done what Rue did.  But I also know — suddenly, and without a trace of doubt — that if she died and it could have meant her survival, _I would have wished she had._

            All I can do now is wait, either for Cato and Clove to find me or for the Gamemakers to do something to drive me to them.  So I wait:  in the darkest part of the cave, with one arrow nocked, listening for the crunch of boots on pine needles or the crackling of fire.

            Instead, I hear a mockingjay singing Rue's song.


	5. P(Survival)

            _Rue is safe._ That’s what this bird is telling me.  _Rue is safe, and you can still win._

           I check myself from running toward the sound.  The message could be from days ago; that the mockingjays remembered it for that long isn’t likely, but it’s possible.  Even if it’s true, I would be better off not looking for her.  I should find a high place nearby to hide.  If the surviving career comes to me first, I can snipe them.  If they get to Rue, I can win without having to do anything else.  I can go home to Prim, and see Rue when I look at her instead of the other way around.  I can live out my life in the sort of comfort I never dreamed of, except for once a year when I’ll be put on a stage and made to play nice with someone I hate, someone who murdered one of the best friends I’ve ever had because I stood back and let them.

            I sling my quiver over my shoulder with such careless force that it smacks against some old bruise or burn on my back hard enough to make me groan in pain.  There’s no more time for this.  I have to accept what I should have known from the first night I spent together with Rue:  my victory condition has changed.  I have to get out of this cave and make things happen myself.

—

            I’ve only been following the birdsong for fifteen or twenty minutes when I hear something that makes my heart twist even more:  Rue’s voice, distant and small, shouting my name.  I break into a sprint, and in another two minutes I hear it again.  As I get closer and the sound gets clearer, I realize that she doesn’t sound frantic.  When I reach her, I find her sitting in a clearing leaning her back against a large stone, one arm wrapped around her pack, her opposite hand clutching at what appears to be a knife wound just above her hip.  She smiles weakly when she sees me.  “Sorry for making you run,” she says.  “I’m hurt pretty badly, so I didn’t want to move too much.”

            “Are you crazy?” I hiss.  “What if someone dangerous had found you?”

            “Katniss,” she says, looking so small and sad and scared, “you’re the most dangerous person left.”

            Suddenly, I realize that I’ve been wrong about everything.  “You’re working with Foxface.”

            “Her name is Wren,” is all that Rue says.

            “This is a trap.”  I grip the wood of my bow, but don’t lift it.  I haven’t forgotten what happened the last time I tried to shoot her.

            “It’s not a trap.”  Rue speaks in a tone I’ve heard my mother use on delirious, dangerously flailing patients as she struggled to sedate them without getting hit in the face.  “She’s hiding because she’s afraid of you.  She won’t come out until you put your bow on the ground and step away from it.”

            “And why should I do that?”

            “Because I have a plan.  You aren’t going to like it, but it might get you out of here alive without having to kill anyone else.”

            “And you?”

            “And me.  But it isn’t going to work unless all of us trust each other completely, and Wren can’t trust you when you’re acting like you think you might have to shoot someone at any moment.”  When I hesitate, she speaks again, and her voice breaks like she’s seconds away from crying.  “Please, Katniss, help me do this.  I know I’ve been horrible.  This is how I’m going to make it right.  It isn’t perfect, but it’s all I can think of, so please, please help me.”

            Whatever she’s trying to do, she isn’t trying to trick me.  I know her well enough to recognize that.  I set my bow down on the forest floor and sidestep to about a yard away from it.

            Wren emerges from a bush just behind where I was standing.  There’s a long gash on her left arm and a large knife clutched in her right hand.

           “You snuck up on me,” I observe.

           She regards me warily.  “Rue may be willing to risk her life to give you a chance, but _I_ wasn’t going to stand aside and let you shoot her.”

           “I would _never_ do that.”  I very nearly spit the words at her.  “I put my bow down.  You put down your knife.”

           “If we’re both unarmed, you win.  You’re bigger than me.”

           “But there are two of you.”

           “No, there aren’t.  Rue won’t fight you.”

           “Rue says we have to trust each other.  I’ll trust you when you put down your knife.”

           Wren rocks back and forth on her feet and bites her lip, clearly considering it carefully.  “You could stab me with an arrow,” she says finally.  “My knife for your quiver.”

           “Fine.  But you first.”  Wren nods at me and drops her weapon suddenly, letting it clatter to the ground instead of setting it down neatly.  Her fingers flex like they’re trying to shake off the shape they’d settled into around the hilt.  I unsling my quiver and toss it by the bow, then look to Rue, who motions for us to come sit by her.  As we do, I ask them, “How did you get rid of District 2?”

           “I’ve been sneaking things out of people’s food stores since the beginning,” says Wren.  “Rue gave me the idea of sneaking something _in_.”

           “Nightlock,” Rue clarifies.  “That’s what got Cato.”

           “And Clove?” I ask.

           Rue looks down at her lap.  Wren rubs at the wound on her arm and says quietly, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

           I remember how Rue and I, working together, managed to win against the District 1 boy in close combat, which he was trained for and we weren’t.  Clove was the stronger fighter, but she was outnumbered, and Rue and Wren are both fast and good at stealth.  I think about how much worse it felt to stab someone with a spear than just to drop a wasps’ nest on their head, and I can only imagine how bad a knife fight would be.

           After much too long of a silence, Rue opens her pack, takes from it three rolls of bread, and sets them at the center of the three of us.  “I made these,” she says.  I briefly wonder what she means by that, but looking at them a bit more closely, I realize they’ve each been cut nearly in half and then put back together.  “I made sure Wren wasn’t watching, so she doesn’t know which is which.  I can’t really tell either, actually.  I tried to make it so I couldn’t.  I don’t _want_ to know.  The way this works is that each of you picks one — Katniss, you can go first, that way you know we’re not trying to trick you — and I get the one left over, and then we all bite in at the exact same time.”

           “What are they?” I ask, though I already have a pretty good guess.

           Rue just stares at me, silent and miserable.  Wren says, “Two of them are just bread.”


	6. Radical

           I meet Rue’s eyes.  “ _That’s_ your big plan?  _That’s_ how you’re going to fix everything?”

           “I did say you wouldn’t like it,” she says.  “But at least it’s _fair._ ”

            “It’s the _only_ way that’s fair,” says Wren in a tone like she’s challenging me to disagree.  “It’s not a nice game, but it’s better than the one we’re supposed to be playing.”

           She’s right.  They’re both right, and I can almost accept it.  Unexpectedly, I find I _can_ accept the thought of biting into one of the rolls, tasting bitterness for a moment, and then simply never tasting anything again.  I still don’t want to die.  I still want to go home.  But after all of the ways I’ve come close to dying in the arena, and with all of the ways I still could die, it just seems so _easy_ that it’s almost appealing.  The thought I can’t accept, the thought that freezes my arm when I try to reach in to grab a piece of bread and just get it over with, is the thought of watching Rue slump lifelessly to the ground beside me and knowing that she died so I could live.

           “I can’t do this,” I tell them.  “There has to be another way.”

           “There are lots of other ways,” says Wren.  “All of them are worse.”

           I ignore her and turn to Rue.  “I get why you’re doing this.”  I reach out and touch the back of her hand.  She flinches and almost jerks away from me, but when she looks up into my face she must see something reassuring, because instead she turns her hand over and clasps her fingers around mine.  “You feel bad for… for choosing Peeta to die, so this time you’re trying not to choose.  But that only happened because I was trying so hard to avoid the decision.  We could have talked about it.  I could have at least thought about it.  I think—”  Even as I say it, I’m finally putting the pieces together.  “—that it was _supposed_ to be my decision, that that’s the big climax everything was building towards, and I—”  I was supposed to kill her, or Peeta was, because the Districts are barbaric and we can’t trust each other or hope to work together.  If I didn’t, if I picked her over him, the drama would still have been ratings gold and it wouldn’t have hurt anything, because everyone knows that I’m The Girl Who Volunteered To Save Her Sister and that Rue reminds me of Prim.  If someone else had killed us, District 2 would have brought home two victors, and, for whatever reason, they’re the ones the Capitol seems to like throwing bones to now and then.  Right now, we’re off the script.  “I have something to make right, too.”  Peeta wanted to die off the script.  In a way, he got that wish, but it was all wrong.  “How can I—”

           Wren squeals like a wounded animal.  My head snaps in her direction.  She’s staring past me with wide, scared eyes, and past _her_ , off in the distance, I see fire creeping toward us.  When I follow her gaze to look behind me, I see the same thing.  The Game Makers have gotten bored of us sitting around not killing each other, and they will burn down the whole arena if that’s what it takes to make us interesting.

           “Katniss,” says Rue.  “ _Please_.”

           I wonder what would happen if we all just sat here and waited.  The Capitol needs a victor, but I don’t think they can afford to let there be three.  Raising the number to two was exceptional enough.  I can’t challenge them on this; there’s so little hope that they’ll concede, and if they don’t we’ll all burn to death.

           “We’re out of time,” Wren says.  She turns to look at where she dropped her knife, starts to stand, then touches the gash on her arm and falls back to her knees.  “No.  We already decided.  Katniss, if you don’t want to pick first, I will, but you have to have one.  We all do.”

           I remember being the Girl on Fire and burning without pain or fear.  I remember Cinna.  Cinna wanted me to win, but if he had worked with Rue, or with Wren, I think he would have wanted the same for them.  That’s just how he is.  Maybe it’s how most people are.

           “Katniss,” Rue says again, squeezing my hand.

           I let go of her and reach into the circle, but I don’t take one of the rolls.  I take all of them, tear them apart, and grab the nightlock berries that fall out of one.  Then I stand and run.  Wren gives a startled cry and comes after me, probably hoping to get to her knife, but she has no chance at that.  It’s farther away than my bow and arrows, and I have a head start.  I scoop them up and spin around to take aim at her face at point blank range.  She brakes her sprint so abruptly she nearly falls over.

           “You want to live, don’t you?”  I ask.  Wren glares at me silently.  Rue gets to her feet and starts staggering towards us, clutching her wound and wincing, which makes me lower the bow faster than anything either of them could have said.  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you.”  Rue doesn’t want that, and it wouldn’t be fair.  “The price for your life is half of your victory money for as long as you receive it.  It goes to my family, understand?”

           From the look on her face, she suddenly does.  “That’s fair enough.  Thank you for doing this.”

           “What _are_ you doing?” Rue shouts at me.  She trips, but she’s close enough that I can get to her and catch her.  I wish I could take a few minutes just to hold her, but Wren is right:  we’re out of time.

           Instead, I lower her gently to the ground, unclip my mockingjay pin, and press it into her hand.  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” I tell her.  “Give Prim my love.”  Then I turn away from her.  I feel her small fingers pull at my clothes before slipping away and hear her call out my name, but I’ve made up my mind.  As I run, I slip one of the berries into my mouth.

           Up until now, I didn’t understand what Peeta meant by wanting to die as himself, because up until now, I didn’t really know who I was.  Now that the Game Makers have given me the last clue I needed, I will do what he couldn’t.

           At the edge of the inferno, I bite down.  Bitterness fills my mouth, and I swallow just before I catch fire.


End file.
